Abstract
To investigate how the perceptions and behaviour of visitors to coral reefs are influenced by their prior experience and knowledge of marine life, a questionnaire-based study was undertaken at sites in the Ras Mohammed National Park and at Sharm El Sheikh, South Sinai, Egypt. It was evident that over the 10–20 years during which these reefs have deteriorated (mainly due to reef-flat trampling), there have been interrelated shifts in the nature of visitors making use of them. First, there has been a shift from experienced divers and snorkellers to inexperienced snorkellers and non-snorkellers with a poorer knowledge of reef biology. Second, there has been a shift in the predominant nationalities of visitors, from German and British, through Italian, to Russian. More recent user groups both stated and showed that they had less experience of snorkelling; they also showed less knowledge of marine life and less interest in learning about it. Visitor perceptions of both the state of the marine life on the reefs and the acceptability of current visitor numbers also varied between groups. More recent visitor groups and visitors with less knowledge were more satisfied with reef health. In general, however, visitor perceptions of reef health did not correlate well with actual reef conditions, probably because more experienced visitors preferred less impacted sites with which they were nevertheless less satisfied than inexperienced visitors at heavily impacted sites. More recent visitor groups were also less bothered by crowding on the shore or in the water. Consequently, the apparent “social carrying capacity” of sites seems to be increasing to a level well above the likely “ecological carrying capacity”.
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Acknowledgments
We would like to thank all staff of the South Sinai Protectorates and Egyptian Environmental Affairs Agency for their help and support, in particular Dr. Moustafa Fouda for giving permission for the work, Dr. Alain Jeudy De Grissac, Dr. Mohammed Salem, Medhat Rabie, and Essam Saadalla for assistance in Sharm El Sheikh, and Usama El Gebali and Magdy Saad for their help with distributing the questionnaires. We also thank the management and staff of the El Fanar restaurant for making free site access possible and all respondents for taking the time to fill in a questionnaire. The research was partly funded through a grant from the Konrad Karl and Dr. Gabriele Sandman Stiftung (KKGS).
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Leujak, W., Ormond, R.F. Visitor Perceptions and the Shifting Social Carrying Capacity of South Sinai’s Coral Reefs. Environmental Management 39, 472–489 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00267-006-0040-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00267-006-0040-1